The heart is regarded as the most important and vital organ in your cat’s body so it needs to be taken care of to ensure an improved quality of a pet’s life. Sadly, it is estimated that 1 in every 10 cats are diagnosed with heart disease.
fATE, also known as Feline Aortic Thromboembolism is a common and serious complication of heart disease. Your dearest pet cat might have an enlarged left heart chamber that promotes the clotting process. Congestive heart failure is one of the symptoms of fATE.
CHF (Congestive heart failure) is a serious condition where the heart fails to pump blood properly around the body which ultimately leads to more cardiac related diseases in your cat. Congestive Heart Failure is a clinical condition that is often followed by myocardial dysfunction and sympathetic nervous system activation.
Symptoms of congestive heart failure in cats:
- Weakness
- Shortness of breath
- Loss of appetite
- Less interest in activity/not playing any more
- Breathing rapidly
- Coughing
- Increased heart rate
Diagnosis:
A physical examination followed by blood tests and x-rays could be advised by your vet to confirm the failure of your beloved cats heart’s function. Often medication can be prescribed to help your pet’s heart and enable them to continue on before it is time to say goodbye peacefully at home. In end-of-life palliative care, we would give this supportive medication based on your kitty’s symptoms alone and stressful tests are not necessarily warranted.
Treatment:
Treating your pet cat diagnosed with cardiac disease can be difficult. Some cardiac diseases are treated by increasing dopamine levels as this helps the circulation of the blood forcefully through the body. Although dopamine agonists (binders) tend to not be great for your cat long term. However, with the right, gentle intervention and treatment schedule, your pet friend can live well for longer with this kind of intervention. As congestive heart failure is a progressive disease, regular check-ups could be performed by your normal vet so adjustments to the recommended treatment can be carried out regularly to ensure optimum success, but this could be stressful so telephone consultations may be a more suitable approach.
Excess fluids will often be present in your kitty’s body if he/she is suffering from CHF. Diuretics will often be prescribed to allow the fluids to flush out of your cat’s system. Beta-blockers are also often used to slow the heart rate and lower the amount of oxygen that the heart uses for blood circulation.
How do you know when it’s time?
Heart failure or other cardiac diseases in cats cause irreversible damage and it will always advance to the next stage inevitably – either slowly or rapidly. There might not be any – or many – visible symptoms in the initial stages of the disease but as time goes by, your dear pet cat could be in pain and distress. Cats do not often verbalise their pain. Most choose to remain silent and inactive instead.
If you would like to really understand how much the disease has affected your pet cat, you may need to visit your vet, or have the mobile vet come to you, who will assess your cat’s quality of life in calm familiar surroundings. Depending on the assessment, the vet will suggest if your cat can continue on with the appropriate treatment with adjustments or if it’s best to put your cat to sleep. Age, breed and the stage of the disease play an important role when deciding if the time is right to euthanize your beloved kitty. Try to discuss with your vet the issues and get their opinion. When you feel it is time, we have expert qualified vets who can come to your home to give your beloved pet our tailored, two-step gentle goodbye in the loving arms of their human and pet family or in their favourite safe place.
Is there pain for your pet cat when they are put to sleep?
The Vets2Home gentle euthanasia procedure consists of a two-step procedure. The first injection is a sedative that gently puts your cat into an unconscious, peaceful state within 3-5 minutes – they hardly notice this happening and then they just fall peacefully to sleep but are still with you. Then, once you are ready and the human and pet family have said goodbye, the second final injection is administered. Your cat will not feel the final injection at all and will cross the rainbow bridge very soon after this second injection is administered.
Vets2home’s team are aware of how much pain, grief and shock this can cause when you make the final decision to put your cat down to sleep. We understand and are there every step of the way, from when you first make contact with us, to ensure your beloved pet and your family are supported and your grief acknowledged compassionately as we are huge animal lovers, who have loved and lost much loved animals ourselves.